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Robert Southey - Henry The Hermit
Work rating: Low

It was a little island where he dwelt,
  Or rather a lone rock, barren and bleak,
  Short scanty herbage spotting with dark spots
  Its gray stone surface. Never mariner
  Approach`d that rude and uninviting coast,
  Nor ever fisherman his lonely bark
  Anchored beside its shore. It was a place
  Befitting well a rigid anchoret,
  Dead to the hopes, and vanities, and joys
  And purposes of life; and he had dwelt
  Many long years upon that lonely isle,
  For in ripe manhood he abandoned arms,
  Honours and friends and country and the world,
  And had grown old in solitude. That isle
  Some solitary man in other times
  Had made his dwelling-place; and Henry found
  The little chapel that his toil had built
  Now by the storms unroofed, his bed of leaves
  Wind-scattered, and his grave o`ergrown with grass,
  And thistles, whose white seeds winged in vain
  Withered on rocks, or in the waves were lost.
  So he repaired the chapel`s ruined roof,
  Clear`d the grey lichens from the altar-stone,
  And underneath a rock that shelter`d him
  From the sea blasts, he built his hermitage.

  The peasants from the shore would bring him food
  And beg his prayers; but human converse else
  He knew not in that utter solitude,
  Nor ever visited the haunts of men
  Save when some sinful wretch on a sick bed
  Implored his blessing and his aid in death.
  That summons he delayed not to obey,
  Tho` the night tempest or autumnal wind.
  Maddened the waves, and tho` the mariner,
  Albeit relying on his saintly load,
  Grew pale to see the peril. So he lived
  A most austere and self-denying man,
  Till abstinence, and age, and watchfulness
  Exhausted him, and it was pain at last
  To rise at midnight from his bed of leaves
  And bend his knees in prayer. Yet not the less
  Tho` with reluctance of infirmity,
  He rose at midnight from his bed of leaves
  And bent his knees in prayer; but with more zeal
  More self-condemning fervour rais`d his voice
  For pardon for that sin, `till that the sin
  Repented was a joy like a good deed.

  One night upon the shore his chapel bell
  Was heard; the air was calm, and its far sounds
  Over the water came distinct and loud.
  Alarmed at that unusual hour to hear
  Its toll irregular, a monk arose.
  The boatmen bore him willingly across
  For well the hermit Henry was beloved.
  He hastened to the chapel, on a stone
  Henry was sitting there, cold, stiff and dead,
  The bell-rope in his band, and at his feet
  The lamp that stream`d a long unsteady light
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